


i should know you better

by searwrites (sears)



Series: soutori au i cant seem to let go of [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Phone Sex, moderately distressing discussions on couches, okay we're boyfriends now what, sousuke still cant do feelings very well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:52:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ll be back sometime between four and, like, nine, I think,” Ai says, shoving a few last minute strands of string and shredded looking fabric samples into the satchel tossed over his shoulder.</p><p>“That. Okay, that tells me nothing. I’ll see you when I see you, I guess,” Sousuke says with a squinted shrug, and then Ai catches him scratching his balls through his boxers, and Sousuke shrinks a little, deflating.</p><p>----------</p><p>from tumblr:</p><p>sousuke/nitori | combining two different anon requests (again) one that asks for sousuke telling ai he loves him and another that requested a continuation of my last soutori fic, which this is. this could technically stand on its own, but you should probably have read the other one first | no real warnings. this is a couple of years after the last fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	i should know you better

It’s barely after four in the morning, and no living creature should even be alive at this hour, nevermind up and puttering around in the kitchen. Sousuke grumpily throws a pillow at the wall - the one with silver sequins on it that they always have to discard from the bed before they sleep, pointless hunk of fabric - and then feels bad about it. Ai probably doesn’t _want_ to be up this early, he just has to be.

“We’re out of coffee,” Ai says - or practically weeps, rather - as Sousuke shuffles into the living room. He’s looking into the empty foil bag like it’s a childhood pet he just found out died a tragic death. Sousuke grunts something that Ai must interpret as _“I’ll take care of it,”_ because he asks him to pick up grounds instead of whole beans, and then leaps up onto the kitchen counter on his knees.

Sousuke cringes as the plates clank when they settle from the force of the leap.

“I’m right here, I can reach shit for you,” he grumbles, walking over and frowning a little when he notices how much of Ai’s thighs he can see from the lack of modest length on his grey pleated shorts.

“Get me the thing for the thing,” Ai says cryptically as he hops back down, yelping in surprise when he hits the solid wall of Sousuke’s chest.

Sousuke rights him when he nearly topples over, and then reaches up for the collapsible lunch box he assumes Ai was referring to so eloquently. He must have guessed correctly, as Ai snatches it from him with a rushed utterance of thanks.

“There’s half for you in the fridge,” Ai shouts, even though Sousuke hasn’t gone back to bed yet. He should. It isn’t even beginning to look light outside, but he can suck it up for five more minutes yet.

“Thanks,” Sousuke says, his voice still that warm, scratchy way it gets when he’s half asleep. Ai jumps when he notices Sousuke is actually still here, and then goes back to harriedly packing his own lunch. Sousuke glances towards the coffee maker, wondering if Ai left him some for later. He did, of course. Always does.

“I’ll be back sometime between four and, like, nine, I think,” Ai says, shoving a few last minute strands of string and shredded looking fabric samples into the satchel tossed over his shoulder.

“That. Okay, that tells me nothing. I’ll see you when I see you, I guess,” Sousuke says with a squinted shrug, and then Ai catches him scratching his balls through his boxers, and Sousuke shrinks a little, deflating.

And there - _there’s_ that smile. Every day, the same one, always this bright.

“I hope your day is amazing,” Ai says to him, sincere in ways that took Sousuke quite a long time to realize the truth of. Ai strides over to him, lifts himself to the balls of his feet, and Sousuke catches him by the back of the head, holds him and kisses him deeper than he knows Ai has time for.

“You too,” Sousuke says, still holding Ai’s face, swiping a thumb across his mouth the way that he does when he feels like being needlessly possessive - a sort of _‘this is mine, remember that’_ gesture that Ai always grins dopily at.

Sousuke kisses him again, because Ai has turned to putty in his hands, and then Ai whines when he pulls back.

“Stop it, I’m gonna be late,” he says.

Sousuke grunts, drops his hands in surrender and retreats, willing away an erection that has pretty much been there since he threw the pillow at the wall. Maybe sometime after four (or nine) they’ll pick this up again. Or maybe they won’t, but that’s okay too.

\--

It isn’t that Sousuke hates his job. It’s easy, it pays alright, and it’s something to do. It’s just extremely boring and may possibly be destroying his soul with the monotony of it all. Data entry, admin work - it’s better than working at the smoothie shop in college days, sure, but not really by a whole lot.

He’s pretty sure Ai has people that do this kind of work _for_ him - reply to emails, write up expense reports. Ai had graduated almost a year and a half ago, and he works now as a production lead for the style department of a somewhat major television company. The first time their local meteorologist wore a gem embellished tailored skirt suit whilst outlining the neon blue edges of a winter storm, Ai was practically shaking in glee on their couch, sighing repeatedly at the perfected cut, so visibly proud of his own work. Sousuke didn’t get it, but he grabbed Ai by the side of his neck, kissed his temple and mumbled, _“proud of you, baby,”_ anyway. It's not like he ever gets that from his family - Ai still doesn't exactly speak to them.

Sousuke just doesn’t feel right here, he never has. His coworkers don’t talk to each other, they all treat it like a prison sentence, even though they’re all too cowardly to leave, and can do so at any time. And that’s it, really. Ai is waking up at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning to pursue a dream, all while Sousuke lives with the sting of having abandoned his not long after high school. It isn’t fair to compare, he knows that, it just - it doesn’t sit right with him. He used to be really good at something. Ai would argue he’s good at a lot of things, but Ai has more optimism in him than anyone Sousuke’s ever known, and it’s taken Sousuke this long just to admit all this to himself.

He’ll think about it, he will. Maybe even bring it up, at some point in time.

\--

“So, you know how we had reservations for that steak place on Sunday?” Ai says, making a twisted face and wringing his hands in his lap, which Sousuke knows means he’s cancelling.

“We don’t have to go,” Sousuke grunts over his carton of food.

Ai slumps in his seat, “I really wanted to! They’re shipping me off to Australia for a week to oversee a surf competition.”

Sousuke’s head jerks upwards. “And what styling do surfers need, exactly?”

Ai frowns at him. “It’s not for the surfers, it’s for our crew. There’s a local boy competing, they want interviews. And, like, a whole bit piece on him experiencing their culture, I don’t know. I have literally less than a day to plan this, I don’t like it.”

“You going to see Rin?” Sousuke asks, forcing it like it’s casual.

“No,” Ai says, though he seems to slow down and think about it. “I don’t think I’ll have time, anyway.”

It’s an easy excuse, but Rin has never been very good at keeping in touch. Sousuke knows Ai is sensitive to this - that not everyone is as enthusiastic about long winded emails and frequent texting as he is - but Rin has always been good at putting himself before everyone else. Sousuke envies him for that, actually.

Ai begins to chew on his lower lip, and Sousuke knows what’s coming before he even opens his mouth to speak.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Of course I’m not,” Sousuke says immediately.

Ai grins down at his lap like he’s trying to hide it, and Sousuke decides he’s had enough of picking through takeout cartons for the night. It’s late and Ai got in just before nine, which makes more sense now that he knows he’s planning a trip in less than two days. He leans over to the edge of the couch, plucks Ai’s tiny little carton of food from his fingers and then tugs on his bare, slender leg.

Ai all but jumps in his lap, presses his face to Sousuke’s neck and breathes him in. This is where he should say it, this is where he almost always does. _I love you, I hate how much you work but I’m so proud of you, I’m not happy with my life right now._

Instead he pinches Ai’s ass and mumbles right against Ai’s ear, “I think you need to make up for the steak I’m missing out on.”

It’s feigned and stupid, and Ai knows this, so he only laughs and wriggles in closer to the broad heat from Sousuke’s chest.

“I’ll miss you,” Ai says, voice quiet and muffled further by the skin of Sousuke’s neck.

Sousuke squeezes him again - a little lower, more like caressing his thigh than anything else.

\--

Ai has to work the following day, because of course he does. It’s Saturday and they’re shipping him off to a foreign country, and of course Ai will not get to spend even one full day that Sousuke has off with him.

Sousuke decides to be a somewhat more proactive boyfriend after a morning of moping about the time, and sets out on a mission.

After a quick stop for some of Ai’s favorite taro milk tea, he makes his way to the bakery close to Ai’s main office. His intention was to get a small box of chocolates that Ai always seems to feel guilty for eating, but he ends up getting a large box of chocolate macaroons when he remembers all the girls Ai works with, and how demanding they can be. They seem to love Sousuke, whenever he does manage to visit.

 _“They just like the_ idea _of you, you’re kind of a college wet dream,”_ Ai said once, and Sousuke still doesn’t understand what that means, but it led to sex at the time, so he was fine with it.

The younger girl that dyes the tips of her hair blonde is the one that greets Sousuke, and Sousuke smiles a little arrogantly when she swoons at all the obvious gifts he’s holding in his big strong arms, and what a lucky guy Ai is, having such a caring boyfriend. She shows him down the hall, even though he knows the way by now, and opens the door to Ai hunched over on the floor, surrounded by large, unfurled charts, sitting cross legged amongst the mess of papers and squinting over the top of his reading glasses.

“Look who’s here!~” the girl singsongs, and Ai looks a little more than distressed when he glances up.

Sousuke turns to send her a curt smile, completely different to the one from earlier. If speaking in facial expressions were a skill, Sousuke would have it mastered. This one says  _that’s enough, thank you, leave us now_.

When he turns back to Ai, he’s smiling, at least. Exhausted and harried, but smiling.

“You brought me things!” Ai says, dropping a pencil and a small pair of steel scissors, lifting his arms and making grabby hands at Sousuke.

“Taro for you and macaroons for the wolves,” he says, using Ai’s hands to lift him from the chaos on the floor instead of handing him the gifts.

“Don’t call them that, that makes _me_  something worse.” Ai kisses the underside of Sousuke’s jaw, the only part of his face he can reach without Sousuke bending down or Ai jumping up, and then tears open the wrapping for the straw with his teeth.

“Everything good?” Sousuke asks, sitting on what little free space he can find of Ai’s desk, wiping a smudge of ink from Ai’s chin unsuccessfully.

“Mm,” Ai nods, drinking the tea so fast that the black tapioca balls blur as they whiz up the straw. “What’s the occasion?” he asks, his mouth partly full, tilting his head towards the pastel pink box of sweets.

 _I’ll miss you too_ , he thinks, and then tries not to make this about guilt. How to tell your boyfriend who works his cute little ass off that you’re planning on quitting your job… it doesn’t exactly come with instructions.

“Just in town,” he shrugs instead, smirking when Ai swats his hand away from where it’s crawling up the pale skin of exposed knee.

“I’ll put those in the conference room in a second,” Ai says, swallowing heavily, and then he frowns pitifully up at Sousuke. “I don’t really have time to hang out right now, though.”

“I know,” Sousuke says, pretending he isn’t disappointed.

He just doesn’t know how Ai does it. If Sousuke weren’t here right now he’d be at home watching reruns and thinking about all the cleaning he isn’t going to do. If he were at work, even, he’d be thinking about all the cleaning he isn’t going to do. Or the reruns he’ll watch when he _gets_ home. How does Ai get through the day without crumbling against his own will, how does a nearly fourteen hour shift not feel like an eternity?

Oh, he thinks, as he watches Ai smudge the touch screen on his phone from the condensation of the tea - Ai actually _likes_ his job, right. That’s a thing.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Sousuke says as he stands, kissing Ai’s cheek once, twice, three times, until Ai’s shoving him away, pretending he doesn’t love it when he’s like this - all gross and obnoxious with him. He leaves with dramatic reluctance.

“Sousuke.”

The gentle concern in Ai’s voice stops Sousuke before he’s gone completely, poking his head back around the door frame. Ai looks like he wants to ask him something, like there’s a corner piece missing to their somewhat disjointed puzzle - something obvious and typically easy to spot, but it becomes the most infuriating when you can’t see it.

“I’ll cook tonight,” Sousuke says after he’s decided Ai looks a little lost, and something in Ai’s expression flickers back to normal, grinning at him shortly before it’s all back to work.

\--

While Ai’s gone, Sousuke does some homework - which feels ironic, calling it that, considering he pretty much dropped school after Ai moved in with him. There are lots of schools for adults, career training. Most of them are business related, which Sousuke makes an actual disgusted face at, but there are other options. Therapy related, more specifically. The same kind he’d been through months of himself, before realizing it was all too little too late.

The facility even has a pool, and a full gym. He looks up the syllabus and catches a class called _‘hydro physio’_ and something deep within his chest clicks, some kind of honing mechanism, locked on a target. This is it, this is what he has to do.

He makes an appointment with an advisor, takes a few aptitude tests, and tries to google _‘how much notice do you need to leave a job you don’t plan on returning to’_. He even plans out how he’ll get to and from the school, if he gets in.

He does this all, and yet he can’t find the time to squeeze it into conversation when Ai calls him every night while he’s gone.

They manage to find time for Ai to switch on the facecam of his phone, for Sousuke to watch Ai jerk himself off in the blueish backlit hue of a night alone at a swanky hotel on the Gold Coast. Sousuke sighs and lies back against the headboard, grunting when the scratchy material of that stupid sequined pillow scrapes into the warm skin of his back.

He tosses the thing from the bed when he sees Ai has his eyes closed, and then he’s back to warm murmurs of _“yeah, like that, look at you, can’t even go a whole week without it”_. Ai slides his slender fingers into himself, whines Sousuke’s name like it’s painful that he isn’t there, and Sousuke feels it, that ache that he thinks is longing. Ai isn’t the only one who can’t go a week.

Ai trembles when he comes, drops the camera unceremoniously, and Sousuke’s wrist aches, but it seems more than worth it to hear Ai moan his name like that, all tinny and distant, needing him even when he’s got so much other shit on his plate.

Sousuke should find the time now. _I’m doing this big thing and I’m kind of terrified -_ he knows he needs to bring it up, but Ai rolls over, tips his phone up so the light of it illuminates his smile, and Sousuke can’t, not yet.

Instead he mumbles a somewhat fucked out goodnight, and then lies flat on his back awake for the next few hours. If his application is accepted, he’s leaving, he decided. Ai has to know this, has to be on board with it. He resolves to wait the extra few days until he’s home.

\--

By the time Ai comes home in a whirlwind of extra luggage and shopping bags, Sousuke has himself worked into a twist. He’s been sitting stiff with tension for the past hour, chewing the inside of his cheek raw thinking of how he’s going to do this, his knee bouncing anxiously.

Ai says a quick out of breath hello, and then he's piling magnets made of seashells and tacky beach scenes onto their fridge, one in particular he holds up so Sousuke can see.

“Why don’t we have any pictures of just the two of us? We should take some, this one's a little photo frame, I think it’s cute. You would love it there, god, you need to go back with me sometime. I’m sure I still smell like the ocean, not sure if that’s a good thing or not--”

“Ai, come sit down for a sec,” Sousuke interrupts, and Ai’s winded brightness dims a little, but he sits on the opposite end of the couch from Sousuke without much fuss.

Sousuke opens with, “We need to talk.”

Something horrible happens to Ai’s face then. It’s like his smile tripped and upended itself, confusion pulling his mouth into a frown.

“Okay,” Ai says, very slowly.

Sousuke’s heart pounds, so heavy he can feel it in his throat. This already isn’t going well, but he has to do it.

“I’m, um. Not happy, right now.”

“Okay,” Ai says again, equally slow, except his eyes are getting wet and he’s tipping his chin up that way he does when he’s trying not to cry, and Sousuke’s hands are shaking.

“I should have done this before you left, I know I shouldn’t have waited, I just--”

“Spit it out,” Ai says, his voice weaker than Sousuke knows he wants it to be, and he frowns like he’s angry at himself for sounding like he’s already inundated with tears. Sousuke tugs on Ai’s ankle, but Ai jerks his foot away from him.

“I’m quitting my job. There’s this physical therapist thing I can do, and I want to do it. It’s full time, though--”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ai exhales weakly, dropping his head into his hands. Sousuke puts what he thinks is a consoling hand on Ai’s shoulder, jerking backwards when Ai snaps up to yell at him, “That’s not how you start out conversations like this!”

“What?” Sousuke says, terrified and confused, and then tries to do that thing his mother once told him he should do - _“put yourself in their shoes”_ \- Ai looking nervous, telling Sousuke they need to talk after being away, and - oh.

“Oh.”

Ai wipes angrily at his damp eyes, and then Sousuke feels even more like shit, because he looks genuinely hurt. “You’ve been wanting to do this since before I left? And you didn’t say anything?”

“You were busy,” Sousuke says, trying his hardest to keep his emotions from shuttering, from turning into a brick of solidarity the way he knows he sometimes does. “It’s a big deal--”

“I _know_ it’s a big deal! Sousuke, we live together, you can talk to me after work.” Ai says it like he’s pleading, holding his palms up, confused and angry.

Sousuke takes Ai’s hands into his, curls his fingers into little fists, covers them in the entire width of his own and squeezes.

“Sorry,” he says simply.

“I want you to be happy,” Ai says, and his voice trembles on the last word, his eyes welling up again. “That’s. It’s not even a question, if this is something you want to do, we have to do it.”

And that - it isn’t what Sousuke was expecting. Though he isn’t sure what he _was_ expecting. For Ai to say it’s stupid, it’s a waste of time and money, it’s financially irresponsible - none of those are things Ai would ever think. They’re all more Sousuke’s style, really. His own internal disapproval projecting onto the best thing he’s got going for him.

Sousuke smiles a little, lopsided and shaky, but real. “I got accepted,” he says, and it shocks him to realize how out of breath he is when Ai tackles him, squealing. He feels so stupid for being afraid.

“God, this is so perfect for you, I always knew you missed the pool, but this is better than that, this is helping people! You know how much you helped me? You’re so good at this.”

Somewhere around the middle of Ai’s emotional rambling it hits Sousuke that he’s been avoiding everything he wants for so long he’s almost forgotten that he is actually allowed to be happy about things. Big things, small things. Or pocket-sized sexy things, things that force him to remember that dreams are capable of changing with time, with reality.

He pulls Ai away from him, kisses his wet little nose, and holds tight onto the sides of his face, squeezes him a little, gently.

“I love you like crazy, you know that right? Tell me you know that.”

Ai looks like he’s going to cry again, and Sousuke curses himself, because maybe the timing isn’t quite right - but he says that to himself every damn time.

“That’s the first time you’ve said it outloud, but yes, I know,” Ai says with his wobbly little voice, and Sousuke kisses the wet corners of his eyes, holds onto his tiny little face like he’ll fall if he lets go.

“Isn’t the first time I’ve thought it,” Sousuke says, a little lamely, but he’s working on it. “Sorry for scaring you,” he adds bashfully.

Ai squeezes Sousuke’s wrists, leans up on his knees to kiss him soundly, and says, “I love you too, but you should know that also.”

Sousuke grins, a little stupid and kind of winded by all this. It’s a lot for one day, but Ai is just kind of like that - he’s constantly pulling Sousuke out of his comfort zone.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, and then he’s digging through Ai’s pockets for his phone.

Ai leans back, slightly alarmed by the invasion of hands, and then he laughs, sniffles. “What are you doing?”

“Your phone has the front camera thing, let’s take a picture,” Sousuke says, growling a little when he still can’t find the phone and realizes Ai’s clothing contains far too many fucking pockets.

Ai laughs even harder this time, swatting his hands away. “Phone’s in my bag, and we don’t have a printer.”

“We’ll find one,” Sousuke huffs, pulling Ai further into his lap until their faces are barely a breath apart. Sousuke has to look up at him from this angle, and Ai tilts his head down, touches their noses together and grins as the phone clicks a pseudo shutter noise at them.

Ai frowns down at the phone. “You look like you’re asleep!”

Sousuke peers at the screen, waves it off and says, “I’m gazing lovingly at you.”

Ai grins and turns on him again, teasing him and being a little shit, saying all singsong, “You love me~”, and Sousuke finds himself cursing the wolves Ai works with for tainting his little peach like this.

They take what must be a couple thousand more photographs, and Ai keeps them all. They don't go right away to get one printed, mainly because Sousuke can’t figure out how, but they can, if they really wanted to. And they will.


End file.
